The Duke University Marine Lab was evacuated Tuesday after explosives were accidentally spilled at the nearby Morehead City port.
Dorm residents at the lab have been evacuated to homes in Beaufort, N.C., according to a Duke news release. Undergraduates were taken to Marine Lab Director Cindy Van Dover’s Beaufort home, and may have spent Tuesday night at the homes of faculty members. Graduate students were taken to other homes in Beaufort.
Following the early morning spill of the explosive chemical PETN, officials closed the port and recommended that people living in the downtown area of Morehead City evacuate. The evacuation order was lifted Tuesday night.
No one was injured in the spill, which occurred when a forklift punctured some barrels containing the explosive as they were being put on a truck. The chemical was being shipped legally into the United States from Spain.
PETN was one of the ingredients in an explosive device a Nigerian man allegedly tried to detonate on a Detroit-bound flight Christmas Day. It can also be used in many other types of explosives.
Emergency responders have been cleaning up the spill, and the port, one of the deepest on the East Coast, is scheduled to reopen at 8 a.m. today.
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